Wednesday, March 13, 2013

4 Myths About Open Source We Should Put to Rest

Growing consumerization of technology means an increasing number of
people have control of what technologies they use in both their personal
and business lives. Two of the biggest areas where this trend manifests
itself these days are mobile technologies and software, the latter of
which has resulted in a steady and significant growth in the use of open
source software (OSS) thanks to its lower cost and relatively similar
functional capabilities. Respondents in last year’s annual Future of
Open Source Survey, which is currently being run for 2013 and can be taken here, indicated that by 2017 organizations will spend 50 percent more than they do now on OSS purchases.
Yet, despite such growth, OSS is still often derided as inferior in
quality, security, and longevity in comparison to proprietary software
when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Here are 4 concerns
that still persist about OSS, and why they should officially be labeled
myths:Myth 1: Open source is less secure than proprietary software
In short, licensing models have nothing to do with security. If
anything, OSS allows for development teams to rapidly address any
security issues, whereas proprietary systems must rely on the software
vendor to get around to issuing an update or patch.
Additionally, open source projects benefit greatly from having a
diverse community that is interested in the development of the solution,
not just one vendor. This allows for things like peer review from a
base of knowledgeable and expert supporters. This really can’t be
undervalued, because while these communities are invested in the quality
of the software, they aren’t necessarily invested in making a buck from
every functional improvement.
In the end, if you asked a group of people to use the same processes
to produce a proprietary model and OSS model of their software, they
would likely be just as secure, and just as functional.Myth 2: Open source is harder to maintain
Question: What do all these things have in common?: Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s famous utterance “hasta la vista, baby”; Nirvana’s
Nevermind album; The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Tim Berners-Lee’s
“World Wide Web” (aka, the Internet); the original Linux open source
kernel.
Answer: They all made their debut in 1991. And 22 years later, Linux
is stronger than ever. Just last year, one of the world’s most popular
gaming distribution platforms, Valve’s Steam – which at 54 million user
accounts has an estimated 50–70% share of the digital distribution
market for video games, made a version that works on Linux.
In many situations in fact, OSS can live on after the relationship
with the original producer or vendor has ended, whether it’s because the
vendor has shifted focus, went out of business, or priced itself out of
the relationship – OSS remains valuable because it eschews all of these
potential pitfalls.Myth 3: There is less support for open source software
If we look at Linux as an example, some of the biggest companies in the
world, for instance Google and Facebook, rely on Linux to run their
servers, so they will always be concerned with maintaining software that
basically runs the platform on which its business is built.
What’s more, with open source software, a business can always bring
in an independent third party for support and consultation, rather than
having to wait for the proprietary vendor to get around to addressing a
particular issue they may have.Myth 4: Open source is not enterprise-grade I’m going to start my answer to this one with a list of organizations who use open source systems:
• Amazon • Google
• IBM
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Reddit
• Wikipedia
• McDonalds
• London Stock Exchange
• New York Stock Exchange
• Audi
• BMW
• Peugeot
• Virgin America
• Dreamworks
That’s really just scratching the surface. Many of the world’s
biggest organizations don’t just use open source software, but, in some
cases, like Google’s Android, base an enormous portion of their entire
business on it.
When the results of 2013 Open Source Survey are released in May of
this year, I have no doubt we’ll see even more evidence of open source’s
continued growth, and, hopefully, we’ll also see evidence that these
myths are becoming just that.